Short Dresses

For my purposes, any dress that's knee length or shorter. I prefer my skirts long.

<-- Grecian Drape dress, 2010
Made as a halloween dress - It isn't really a costume, just an unusual technique.


Red Button-y Dress, 2011 -->
This was made out of a bunch of precut fabric pieces that I found in a pile of fabric given to me by someone-or-other. Hard to see in this picture but I had a million buttons (still have some) that matched the red, so I marched them down the princess seams to about the waist. The dress actually closes with a back zipper.

<-- Velvety Green Dress, 2009
One of my favorites of all time. The dark green has the texture of a brand new billiard table or something, so it's a real treat to wear. The color is fabulous too - piled fabrics have amazing depth of color.


Drape-front dress, 2010 -->
Originally this had an ill-conceived halter neck, but I changed it to narrow crossing straps when it was chosen as my costume for a background chorus member in a youth production of Rent. It's a fine dress but it's now forever linked to that show in my head.

<-- Boobless Dress, 2012
From my boobless garments phase. It functions basically like a jumper, and needs to be worn with a shirt underneath.



high-low black dress, 2011 -->
I hate high-low skirts, so I don't know what happened here. I wanted a black dress that would be considered "concert appropriate" at school, but would also be as cool to wear as possible.

<-- "green" jersey dress, 2012
It is green from close up, I promise. It's a very simple little shift dress. The stretchy material is thin enough to be slightly transparent.


Oversize Grey dress, 2012 -->
From a sort of ugly fabric I somehow got this fairly nice, understated dress! It's a bit large and boxy, which means interesting draping that's individual to the wearer.

Shift Dresses, 2010
All with this same shape, and just embellishments to make them pop. I really enjoy embellishing simple shapes, so it works out. The tiny pockets on the white and grey ones are cute, but I had a habit of resting my hands in them, so the sides began to separate from the dress pretty fast.

<-- Little Red Flowers! 2010
What great trim! Unfortunately, the partially loose flowers (taken from a lei) didn't love being laundered. I ought to go back and sew the petals down like proper applique.


White with red sash 2011 ->
A plain little summery dress. A bit sheer, as white fabric often is. It was one of my favorites for a while.

<-- Jungle dress 2011
although the print looks abstract from far away, it's actually a jungle scene with a jaguar and things. I tried braided straps; it was somewhat successful.


Circus tent dress, 2011 -->
Surprisingly flattering for something named after a tent. The red overskirt has a bit of the effect of old school polonaise'd skirts, as far as visually slimming the waist goes.

<-- the parting of the red sea, 2011
Here's one where the excitement of creation outpaced design choices. The placement on the funny little red apron certainly is interesting.

Paisley Plus, 2008 -->
I only have terrible pictures of this one, for some reason. The top part is in purple paisley and comes to about mid-thigh, with a blue knee length skirt underneath.

<-- green dress 2010
very plain and bland. It had proper straps at one point but I cut them off and used bits of ribbon instead.


Wide-sleeve feedsack dress, 2008 -->
The red parts have one of those small-scale prints that look a bit like feedsack prints. This dress never even had a zipper to begin with.

Patchwork dresses, 2007-9
These kinds of patchwork dresses were one of my characteristic looks in high school. The pattern allowed me to use small or odd-shaped bits of fabric and get a full garment. They do make mending a little tricky, with all the small seams in the skirt. The bands that form the torso are also a great shortcut to shaping for a fairly rectangular person such as myself - one band at bust measure, one at underbust measure, and one at hip measure, and pleat them to fit together!

<-- "Extra" Dress, 2009
There are just so many things happening here. Originally in was a plain blue dress but the skirt was much too narrow. so the pink was added. But that had holes in it somehow so the blue circles were added. And the lace neckline. And after all of that, it's barely past bum length on me, and no fun to wear at all.

babydoll dress and jacket, 2007 -->
Made as a "doll" halloween costume. A surprisingly cool mix of prints, but the jacket thing was a mistake.

<-- blue dress red sash, 2011
great simple summer dress, nice plain babydoll shape, concentrating on the print with the pops of contrasting red to pull it all together.


Red yikes dress, 2010 -->
The project from a summer "fashion" class. The class was way below my sewing level and way above my drawing level. Everyone had to make the same dress - the pattern is this but with straps. it was annoyingly difficult to customize because oof what even is that shape.

<-- Prison bars, 2007
A simple concept, and not badly done, except that it's massively too small for me, and was from the start


Plain brown dress, 2007 -->
very boxy by virtue of the stiff fabric. also probably was too small and wouldn't zip properly.

<-- Accidentally tiny dress, 2007
This was a normal sized dress, once upon a time, but the fabric was mystery content and seems to have contained some wool (or something that wished it were wool) because it shrank very nicely in the wash.


wide collar dress 2011 -->
the collar isn't a proper sailor collar, although it has a bit of that look. The stripes going every which way give it an interesting optical shaping effect.